Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In Life of Pi, Martel presents the paradoxical image of a recently-killed orangutan that “looked like a simian Christ on the Cross.” The cross symbol has many associations of suffering, sacrifice, and punishment-redemption, associated with the voluntary death of a divinity for the sins of the many. Martel turns these spiritual connotations upside down with his intrusion of the “ape” on the cross, thus reversing the symbolism of the suffering Christ with that of the suffering ape. This salute to reverse evolution in which the ape becomes the sacrificial “lamb” dramatically impacts our reading of the novel. Martel’s preoccupation with the nature of consciousness in animals and the emotional connections between animals and humans, is evident in most of his fiction, but especially so in Life of Pi and The High Mountains of Portugal, where he continues his pursuit of the “simian Christ on the Cross” through the three sections of the novel. The redemptive power of animals in the face of human suffering reflects a persistent and significant theme in Martel’s world. The formal explication of this paradox is effectively achieved through postmodern strategies that include allegory, magic realism, complex author-narrator-character interactions, antithetical and interrupted narratives and timelines, and other discontinuities and inconclusive endings. Martel’s work is based on exhaustive research on animal and human consciousness, and the compulsion to extend consciousness beyond that of the mortal world. His work provides a provocative, stimulating, and at times soul-shriveling perspective on the interactions between human animals and their evolutionary precursors.